Baldur's Gate Larian is moving away from D&D, no BG3 DLC or BG4

[Achdulieber]

Well, thank God.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

But this is a site specifically catering to CRPG fans

That's a whole lot of words just to miss the point. It doesn't matter that this site is dedicated to CRPGs, the fact of the matter is that every single CRPG that followed the late 1990s either wanted to be Baldur's Gate or Diablo. And that includes Freedom Force, which doesn't come up nearly as much as Baldur's Gate ever did since you're talking about interviews with one guy about one game series that was popular for a time and then vanished. I'm talking every. single. AAA published. CRPG wanted to be either Baldur's Gate or Diablo in the 2000s.

 

[Roguey]

It’s hilarious that you think kids didn’t play M rated games.

Some did. I'd say most did not.

There was a massive political shitstorm in the mid-90s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993–94_United_States_Senate_hearings_on_video_games

Politicians freaked out about Night Trap, a campy fmv game with no blood or gore or nudity, simply because it depicted actresses in peril (whom you're supposed to save, not hurt). The culture was not laissez faire about this, though it became moreso in the 00s.

Doom, or at least some version of it, (probably Final Doom) used to be set up on computers at Walmart in those years they used to do that.

No way. Walmart wouldn't even sell cds with the explicit content sticker, all their albums were clean/censored. They weren't going to expose small kiddies to blood and gore.

Were you a teenage before 1996, or were you a teenage in the late 2000s when the PC boom had ended and that average person that would’ve been buying a nice PC before was maybe getting a laptop that wasn’t much good for playing video games...and then even later just getting a tablet. Maybe the Walmart stuff clued you into this, but I don’t live in Europe, and everyone I knew as a kid, before I was a teen, had a pretty nice PC they could play video games on by at least 1997.

I was a teen in the late 90s/early 00s. I see you come from wealth. Wealthy people in the US are a minority.

My family's financial status was atypical, but I'd say most of my peers were middle/working class and most didn't have computers up until I switched high schools where the crowd was more upper-middle-class, more teens with computers.

Let’s take a look at those KickStarter numbers for Obsidians’ spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate: Pillars of Eternity (Project Eternity) - 73,986 backers. Now, if a game was only ever bought by 75,000 people, would you be arguing that it was some well known successfully brand that guaranteed future sales in the millions for some sequel? By 2016 it’s sales were at 700,000. That is not a big game that everyone knows of. Those are not big numbers.

Just because millions of people aren't interested in buying it doesn't mean they haven't heard of it. After Bioware, Beamdog, Obsidian went on and on about Baldur's Gate to sell their own newer products, not to mention all the many journalists who compared Divinity Original Sin to Baldur's Gate (much to Swen's annoyance who was at least glad they finally stopped comparing it to Diablo) it's reasonable to say that the millions of people who had PCs and Steam knew what Baldur's Gate was when they bought BG3. "People who don't play games or only play console games never heard of Baldur's Gate before," likely true. But BG3 can only be bought by people with internet connections and Steam accounts, they sure as hell know what it is.

 

[mindx2]

Assisted Living Godzilla How old are you? This isn't a snarky question as it seems you are looking at the 1990s through the lens of today's video game market size. Back in the 90s "gaming" was still relatively smaller and when one spoke of "gaming" you thought table-top or board game. The % of people that computer gamed and knew of BG was quite large as there were so few true cRPGs available. You can't just look at sales numbers at the time and say anyone hardly noticed this game, especially compared to today's numbers. At the time if you knew anything about computer games, which was an adult market w/ consoles (Nintendo) clearly a kid's box, it was DOMINATED by BG and Diablo. So the percentage of players that were aware of these games was huge when compared to the percentage of today's gamers where there are literally thousands of choices that dilute awareness.

Plus it was D&D! That was, and still is, THE role-playing game so it being branded as such only increased its visibility. It was in every rpg magazine (adverts & articles) at the time.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

But this is a site specifically catering to CRPG fans

That's a whole lot of words just to miss the point. It doesn't matter that this site is dedicated to CRPGs, the fact of the matter is that every single CRPG that followed the late 1990s either wanted to be Baldur's Gate or Diablo. And that includes Freedom Force, which doesn't come up nearly as much as Baldur's Gate ever did since you're talking about interviews with one guy about one game series that was popular for a time and then vanished. I'm talking every. single. AAA published. CRPG wanted to be either Baldur's Gate or Diablo in the 2000s.

I think your missing the point. Look, Baldur’s Gate found success in its niche. And yes, there were even smaller games that were hoping to reach the minor heights of Baldur’s Gate, (in a market where 50,000 was good, Baldur’s Gate was doing exceptionally well) but that doesn’t mean Baldur’s Gate itself was a widely known game. Developers of CRPGs looking at what other people in their field are doing doesn’t translate to the general gaming audience knowing what the fuck BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate games are.

Also, developers wanted to be Diablo, at least combat wise, more so than they wanted to be Baldur’s Gate. You start getting stuff like Nox, Arcanum’s real-time combat system, and the real-time combat aspect of Fallout Tactics.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

You start getting stuff like Nox, Arcanum’s real-time combat system, and the real-time combat aspect of Fallout Tactics.

So, with the partial exception of the first... Complete shit?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It’s hilarious that you think kids didn’t play M rated games.

Some did. I'd say most did not.

I’d say most did. Just like most kids under the age of 13 get to watch PG-13 movies, and most kids get to watch R rated movies long before they’re 17. Even the one kid I knew whose parents wouldn’t let him watch Pg-13 movies before he was 13 had parents that didn’t seem to give a fuck about video game ratings. You gotta remember, that’s a generation of parents that saw all video games as being for kids, and largely did not play video games at all outside of maybe some arcade game they liked as a teen.

There was a massive political shitstorm in the mid-90s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993–94_United_States_Senate_hearings_on_video_games

Politicians freaked out about Night Trap, a campy fmv game with no blood or gore or nudity, simply because it depicted actresses in peril (whom you're supposed to save, not hurt). The culture was not laissez faire about this, though it became moreso in the 00s.

And your average person didn’t give a fuck. And yeah, the culture was pretty laissez-faire about it. It ain’t like Mortal Kombat arcade cabinets were tucked away in some curtained off adults only section at every place that had arcade cabinets in the ‘90s. If the kid was smart enough to remind their parents they’d already been playing something like Mortal Kombat for a year or something before the ratings even rolled around they probably got to keep playing the games when the parent said “I don’t know” after seeing the rating.

Doom, or at least some version of it, (probably Final Doom) used to be set up on computers at Walmart in those years they used to do that.

No way. Walmart wouldn't even sell cds with the explicit content sticker, all their albums were clean/censored. They weren't going to expose small kiddies to blood and gore.

Yes way. I personally played Doom, and a few other first person shooters in Walmart. I also played Eternal Darkness on their GameCube setup back when that was coming out.

I’m writing this out of order, that Mortal Kombat thing just reminded me. The first time I ever saw Mortal Kombat 2 was at Walmart. It may have been a new Super Walmart that got built. In those entrance areas that don’t have much of anything anymore, but back in the ‘90s used to have arcade machines, I saw a brand new Mortal Kombat 2 arcade cabinet.

Walmart was pretty weird about music, but that didn’t really carry over all that much into movies and video games. I remember seeing that movie Hard Rain playing at the same Walmart once. The volume was probably off, but it is an R rated movies. The movie and video game version of what you’re talking about with Walmart was they wouldn’t carry X or NC-17 movies, and they wouldn’t carry AO rating games. Although they started carrying X and NC-17 movies in the early 2000s if they were labeled as unrated. Like I bought The Evil Dead and I Spit on Your Grave at Walmart. And I’m sure if you buy RoboCop their now it’s the X rated version listed as unrated.

Were you a teenage before 1996, or were you a teenage in the late 2000s when the PC boom had ended and that average person that would’ve been buying a nice PC before was maybe getting a laptop that wasn’t much good for playing video games...and then even later just getting a tablet. Maybe the Walmart stuff clued you into this, but I don’t live in Europe, and everyone I knew as a kid, before I was a teen, had a pretty nice PC they could play video games on by at least 1997.

I was a teen in the late 90s/early 00s. I see you come from wealth. Wealthy people in the US are a minority.

My family's financial status was atypical, but I'd say most of my peers were middle/working class and most didn't have computers up until I switched high schools where the crowd was more upper-middle-class, more teens with computers.

I wish I was rich. I would’ve had the Internet way sooner when I was young. I only first ended up getting Internet access as a kid because I ended up using one of those K-Mart Bluelight Internet dice.

I was also a teen at that time, and everyone I knew had a fairly nice computer to play videos games on throughout our middle school years before turning 13. Everyone had a family computer. It’s like, before 1996 it didn’t seem like anyone I knew had a computer. But after 1996 everyone was getting a family computer, all my friends had one, you go over to some random kids house they’ve got one, you go over to some girls house they got one. One of the down sides of not having the Internet for so long is it seemed like everyone also had the Internet and were all talking to AIM at night.

Let’s take a look at those KickStarter numbers for Obsidians’ spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate: Pillars of Eternity (Project Eternity) - 73,986 backers. Now, if a game was only ever bought by 75,000 people, would you be arguing that it was some well known successfully brand that guaranteed future sales in the millions for some sequel? By 2016 it’s sales were at 700,000. That is not a big game that everyone knows of. Those are not big numbers.

Just because millions of people aren't interested in buying it doesn't mean they haven't heard of it. After Bioware, Beamdog, Obsidian went on and on about Baldur's Gate to sell their own newer products, not to mention all the many journalists who compared Divinity Original Sin to Baldur's Gate (much to Swen's annoyance who was at least glad they finally stopped comparing it to Diablo) it's reasonable to say that the millions of people who had PCs and Steam knew what Baldur's Gate was when they bought BG3. "People who don't play games or only play console games never heard of Baldur's Gate before," likely true. But BG3 can only be bought by people with internet connections and Steam accounts, they sure as hell know what it is.

Yeah, Obsidian invoked the name of a popular CRPG in the hope that audience would give them money. They were working within a niche, and they name dropped a series that’s largely beloved by fans of that niche. There’s developers that will bring up Heroes of Might and Magic in relation to their game, but I don’t assume that means Heroes of Might and Magic is series everyone knows of.

I’m having a hard time seeing why anyone thinks Baldur’s Gate 3 selling what it has, (which can be estimated to be somewhere around 14 and 15 million copies) has much of anything to do with BioWare’s previous Baldur’s Gate games (none of which even to this day have seeming hit 3 million sales) and the brand awareness of Baldur’s Gate when the studio making Baldur’s Gate 3 was coming off a hit game that over the course of around five years ended up selling more than 7 million copies.

Talk that the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 was inevitable because of the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons as a brand, and Baldur’s Gate specifically make no scene when most D&D video games don’t really seem to be great successes. Like the Baldur’s Gate games seem to be some of the most successful, and they weren’t wildly successful.

 

[scytheavatar]

Assisted Living Godzilla How old are you? This isn't a snarky question as it seems you are looking at the 1990s through the lens of today's video game market size. Back in the 90s "gaming" was still relatively smaller and when one spoke of "gaming" you thought table-top or board game. The % of people that computer gamed and knew of BG was quite large as there were so few true cRPGs available. You can't just look at sales numbers at the time and say anyone hardly noticed this game, especially compared to today's numbers. At the time if you knew anything about computer games, which was an adult market w/ consoles (Nintendo) clearly a kid's box, it was DOMINATED by BG and Diablo. So the percentage of players that were aware of these games was huge when compared to the percentage of today's gamers where there are literally thousands of choices that dilute awareness.

Plus it was D&D! That was, and still is, THE role-playing game so it being branded as such only increased its visibility. It was in every rpg magazine (adverts & articles) at the time.

In the year which the first Baldur's Gate came out (1998), Starcraft came out and that game sold 11 million copies by 1999. I think it is ridiculous to pretend BG was anyway near as "dominating" as Starcraft. Also TSR was bankrupted and sold to WOTC in 1997 and D&D was in a dark place then until 3rd ed was released, after BG2.

 

[mindx2]

Assisted Living Godzilla How old are you? This isn't a snarky question as it seems you are looking at the 1990s through the lens of today's video game market size. Back in the 90s "gaming" was still relatively smaller and when one spoke of "gaming" you thought table-top or board game. The % of people that computer gamed and knew of BG was quite large as there were so few true cRPGs available. You can't just look at sales numbers at the time and say anyone hardly noticed this game, especially compared to today's numbers. At the time if you knew anything about computer games, which was an adult market w/ consoles (Nintendo) clearly a kid's box, it was DOMINATED by BG and Diablo. So the percentage of players that were aware of these games was huge when compared to the percentage of today's gamers where there are literally thousands of choices that dilute awareness.

Plus it was D&D! That was, and still is, THE role-playing game so it being branded as such only increased its visibility. It was in every rpg magazine (adverts & articles) at the time.

In the year which the first Baldur's Gate came out (1998), Starcraft came out and that game sold 11 million copies by 1999. I think it is ridiculous to pretend BG was anyway near as "dominating" as Starcraft. Also TSR was bankrupted and sold to WOTC in 1997 and D&D was in a dark place then until 3rd ed was released, after BG2.

South Korea
...and regardless of TSR's issues (incompetent management not IP) D&D was still thee fantasy table-top brand.

Also, they wouldn't have added a 3 to the name if it didn't carry advertising weight. We've seen a lot of games over the years drop the numbering system for fear it would hinder sales but obviously not in this case.

 

[Roguey]

In the year which the first Baldur's Gate came out (1998), Starcraft came out and that game sold 11 million copies by 1999.

Previous page man: "StarCraft's worldwide sales reached 4 million units by July 2001; South Korea accounted for 50% of these copies"

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Assisted Living Godzilla How old are you? This isn't a snarky question as it seems you are looking at the 1990s through the lens of today's video game market size. Back in the 90s "gaming" was still relatively smaller and when one spoke of "gaming" you thought table-top or board game. The % of people that computer gamed and knew of BG was quite large as there were so few true cRPGs available. You can't just look at sales numbers at the time and say anyone hardly noticed this game, especially compared to today's numbers. At the time if you knew anything about computer games, which was an adult market w/ consoles (Nintendo) clearly a kid's box, it was DOMINATED by BG and Diablo. So the percentage of players that were aware of these games was huge when compared to the percentage of today's gamers where there are literally thousands of choices that dilute awareness.

Plus it was D&D! That was, and still is, THE role-playing game so it being branded as such only increased its visibility. It was in every rpg magazine (adverts & articles) at the time.

No, by the late ‘90s PC gaming was not an adult market. The PC market was also not dominated by Baldur's Gate and Diablo the year they came out. Baldur’s Gate wasn’t even in the PC Top 20 sellers of 1998.

Here’s a quote from a 1999 article looking at the best selling PC games of 1998

This data comes from PC Data, and according to them represents some 80% of the US retail market, based on units sold by forty-two retail and mail order chains.

Rank	Title	Publisher
1	Starcraft	Cendant Software
2	Deer Hunter	GT Interactive
3	Myst	Learning Company
4	Titanic	Cendant Software
5	Flight Simulator	Microsoft
6	Diablo	Cendant Software
7	Cabela's Big Game Hunter	Activision
8	Lego Island	Learning Company
9	Riven	Learning Company
10	Age of Empires	Microsoft
11	Unreal	GT Interactive
12	Deer Hunter II 3D	GT Interactive
13	Frogger	Hasbro Interactive
14	Quake II	Activision
15	Monopoly	Hasbro Interactive
16	Links LS Golf 98	Access Software
17	Rocky Mountain Trophy Hunter	GT Interactive
18	Star Wars Rebellion	LucasArts
19	NASCAR II	Cendant Software
20	SimCity 2000 SE	Electronic Arts

Source: PC Data Take-Two Takes TalonSoft Maryland-based wargaming house acquired in stock swap. Shortly before the holiday break, Take-Two Interactive announced that it had completed its acquisition of TalonSoft.

And video games were doing quite well in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Go look at the Wikipedia pages for the best selling PSX, N64, and PS2 games. If Baldur's Gate 2 was a PS2 game, it’s last sales update of “over 2 million” would put it above ESPN NFL 2K5 which is in the 71st spot. Hell, video games were doing quite well in the early ‘90s too; Street Fighter 2 made billions in the arcade. It’s probably only in recently years where publishers are even kind of able to pull in the kind of money arcades games were.

Also this idea that most people thought of table-top at any point in the ‘90s if they heard the word “gaming” is such a bizarre statement. If anything the average person probably thought of casinos or something if they heard the phrase “gaming” in the early ‘90s.

The percentage of people that played games on the PC and also played CRPGs actual seems to be fairly small. The biggest PC games were first person shooters and real-time strategy games, (which is the whole reason BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate games even play like they do, because they wanted the RTS market) as well as stuff like: Myst, Rollercoster Tycoon, and The Sims. Those last three games are like the three biggest PC games of the ‘90s.

 

[mindx2]

Assisted Living Godzilla Perhaps I should have said RPGing. Regards, we're all talking in circles and you won't convince me that BG was just a small largely unknown niche game. I lived that era (as an adult not kiddy consoler) and know it was one of THEE games to be released that year based on gaming mags (both video and table-top), online and physical store adverts and chatter (EB, Egghead, etc.). I will once again say that if your "theory" were correct then why even use the name Baldur's Gate let alone put a 3 on it.... You use the name because it carries with it a following/fan base, nostalgia, built in name recognition, etc. Marketing 101

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Assisted Living Godzilla Perhaps I should have said RPGing. Regards, we're all talking in circles and you won't convince me that BG was just a small largely unknown niche game. I lived that era (as an adult not kiddy consoler) and know it was one of THEE games to be released that year based on gaming mags (both video and table-top), online and physical store adverts and chatter (EB, Egghead, etc.). I will once again say that if your "theory" were correct then why even use the name Baldur's Gate let alone put a 3 on it.... You use the name because it carries with it a following/fan base, nostalgia, built in name recognition, etc. Marketing 101

You think you know. You’re going off a feeling you have about how big it was because you saw some stuff about it in magazines that specifically cover things like PC games and D&D in general, and not the actual numbers that show how many units were sold. And I was playing PC games at this time too, and I was also reading PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Next Generation, (I wasn’t reading that one as much, but I’ve still got the one where they cover the original version of Half-Life where Gordon Freeman has a big beard and the security guards look like a cartoony Don Knotts) and PC Accelerator. Baldur’s Gate was not huge. You know, there were a lot of ads in PC magazines for Jagged Alliance 2 too, but that does mean it sold well or was all that well known beyond the ads. In like ‘91/‘92 the comic book magazine Wizard would have a lot of stuff about Lady Death and Evil Ernie, which could definitely give the impression that these two characters belonged to two pretty popular comic books; but there comics weren’t that big. What you’re saying is like someone saying they know Lady Death was big in the ‘90s because they had Wizard Magazine and Wizard covered that character all the time.

Larian Studios made the deal to do Baldur's Gate 3 before Divinity: Original Sin 2 was even released. They went to Wizard of the Coast and pitched them a BG3 back when they had finished the first Divinity: Original Sin, WotC turned them down, then years later WotC came back to them and asked if they were still interested in doing a BG3 after seeing stuff about D:OS2.

 

[Harthwain]

Yeah, there is some brand recognition going with DnD and Baldur's Gate series, but the biggest draw for the crowd were Larian's Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2. No doubt about it.

 

[Mortmal]

So...what now for Larian? As was said, Bioware and Obsidian ditched what they were good at and started experimenting with dumb shit with results being what they are.

I feel like the safe guess is to just assume they'll make another game with gameplay similar to the two D:OS games and BG3, but with a smaller scope

Yet sven recently said their next game will dwarf BG3. From gamespot interview:
"Prior to development on Baldur's Gate 3, Larian CEO Swen Vincke was already planning out the company's future, and this included what he calls "the very big RPG that will dwarf them all."

When all this news broke of them walking away from BG Swen also stated their next game won't be the "Big RPG" he's talked about over the years.

I am not so sure :
“I don’t know if we’re going to pull it off, but looking at our narrative, visual and gameplay plans, I think what we’re working on now will be our best work ever. I get excited like a kid watching the key imagery, want to show it to everyone now and grumble in frustration at having to wait until it’s actually all working. Yes, it’s hype but it’s hype because it really looks and feels good.” - Excited Swen, April 17th 2024.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So...what now for Larian? As was said, Bioware and Obsidian ditched what they were good at and started experimenting with dumb shit with results being what they are.

I feel like the safe guess is to just assume they'll make another game with gameplay similar to the two D:OS games and BG3, but with a smaller scope

Yet sven recently said their next game will dwarf BG3. From gamespot interview:
"Prior to development on Baldur's Gate 3, Larian CEO Swen Vincke was already planning out the company's future, and this included what he calls "the very big RPG that will dwarf them all."

When all this news broke of them walking away from BG Swen also stated their next game won't be the "Big RPG" he's talked about over the years.

I am not so sure :
“I don’t know if we’re going to pull it off, but looking at our narrative, visual and gameplay plans, I think what we’re working on now will be our best work ever. I get excited like a kid watching the key imagery, want to show it to everyone now and grumble in frustration at having to wait until it’s actually all working. Yes, it’s hype but it’s hype because it really looks and feels good.” - Excited Swen, April 17th 2024.

3D Tetris VR in 8k by Larian Studios!

"You can almost feel the blocks in your hand!" -- Swen

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Larian Studios’ Tetris Effect 2.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Larian should purchase the rights for Interplay's best-selling game of all time:

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, there is some brand recognition going with DnD and Baldur's Gate series, but the biggest draw for the crowd were Larian's Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2. No doubt about it.

I'm going to doubt it, but there is no doubt in my mind that Larian is a developer that actually gives a shit about their properties. While I never finished D:OS2, I had the PC version for quite a while when they released the Switch version. Then they released the Switch patch which made it so your save games on PC could be ported over to the Switch and then back again to the PC. So, I bought the Switch version when I caught it on sale as well, because not many developers actually go that far when it comes to ports of their games.

 

[Mortmal]

So...what now for Larian? As was said, Bioware and Obsidian ditched what they were good at and started experimenting with dumb shit with results being what they are.

I feel like the safe guess is to just assume they'll make another game with gameplay similar to the two D:OS games and BG3, but with a smaller scope

Yet sven recently said their next game will dwarf BG3. From gamespot interview:
"Prior to development on Baldur's Gate 3, Larian CEO Swen Vincke was already planning out the company's future, and this included what he calls "the very big RPG that will dwarf them all."

When all this news broke of them walking away from BG Swen also stated their next game won't be the "Big RPG" he's talked about over the years.

I am not so sure :
“I don’t know if we’re going to pull it off, but looking at our narrative, visual and gameplay plans, I think what we’re working on now will be our best work ever. I get excited like a kid watching the key imagery, want to show it to everyone now and grumble in frustration at having to wait until it’s actually all working. Yes, it’s hype but it’s hype because it really looks and feels good.” - Excited Swen, April 17th 2024.

3D Tetris VR in 8k by Larian Studios!

"You can almost feel the blocks in your hand!" -- Swen

There's larian written on it, i'll buy it anyway.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

While I can’t honestly say I have any particular affection for D&D/Forgotten Realms as a setting, what I find a bit perplexing about this move of stepping immediately away from the license from Larian is… How wasteful it feels in terms of assets.

They had tons of models, animations, creatures, spells and so on specifically modeled around D&D and they barely had a chance to make full use of them even in BG3, where often some types of enemies barely showed up for a single, semi hidden fight.

Doing more with some of these in a sequel, let’s say in the way BG2 expanded significantly on the first, sounded like a natural follow up.
And a very cost-effective one.

 

[Swen]

While I can’t honestly say I have any particular affection for D&D/Forgotten Realms as a setting, what I find a bit perplexing about this move of stepping immediately away from the license from Larian is… How wasteful it feels in terms of assets.

They had tons of models, animations, creatures, spells and so on specifically modeled around D&D and they barely had a chance to make full use of them even in BG3, where often some types of enemies barely showed up for a single, semi hidden fight.

Doing more with some of these in a sequel, let’s say in the way BG2 expanded significantly on the first, sounded like a natural follow up.
And a very cost-effective one.

It's not about the money, it's about sending a message.

 

[scytheavatar]

While I can’t honestly say I have any particular affection for D&D/Forgotten Realms as a setting, what I find a bit perplexing about this move of stepping immediately away from the license from Larian is… How wasteful it feels in terms of assets.

They had tons of models, animations, creatures, spells and so on specifically modeled around D&D and they barely had a chance to make full use of them even in BG3, where often some types of enemies barely showed up for a single, semi hidden fight.

Doing more with some of these in a sequel, let’s say in the way BG2 expanded significantly on the first, sounded like a natural follow up.
And a very cost-effective one.

What's there stopping Larian from making a DOS3 with BG3 assets? If they want to, they can even make it a 5E game without asking for WOTC's permission.

 

[jf8350143]

Yeah, there is some brand recognition going with DnD and Baldur's Gate series, but the biggest draw for the crowd were Larian's Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2. No doubt about it.

The largest draw for the crowd is "look you can fuck a bear". Also the early access let people play the game's best part which lead people to have a misjudgement about the quality of the game.

Original Sin series is nowhere near as important as some people thinks.

 

[scytheavatar]

Yeah, there is some brand recognition going with DnD and Baldur's Gate series, but the biggest draw for the crowd were Larian's Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2. No doubt about it.

The largest draw for the crowd is "look you can fuck a bear". Also the early access let people play the game's best part which lead people to have a misjudgement about the quality of the game.

Original Sin series is nowhere near as important as some people thinks.

BG3 already sold like 2 million copies in early access, it was already a success before "look you can fuck a bear". And much of it is because of the fanbase Larian built with the DOS games.